Rohit Prasad's move from leading Amazon's Alexa science team to becoming Boston Dynamics CEO represents a specific philosophy about where robotics companies should compete next. Rather than hiring a roboticist or manufacturing executive, Boston Dynamics chose a leader whose entire career has centered on the AI systems that make a robot intelligent, not the hardware that makes it move.
That choice implicitly concedes that Boston Dynamics' historical strength, some of the most mechanically impressive robots in the industry, isn't the constraint on commercializing Physical AI at scale. The constraint is onboard intelligence sophisticated enough to operate with minimal human oversight, and Prasad's hiring is a bet that AI systems expertise, not more advanced actuators, is what closes that gap.